Abstract
Big bang nucleosynthesis in the presence of decaying relic neutral particles is examined in detail. All nonthermal processes important for the determination of light-element abundance yields of , , , , , and are coupled to the thermonuclear fusion reactions to obtain comparatively accurate results. Predicted light-element yields are compared to observationally inferred limits on primordial light-element abundances to infer constraints on the abundances and properties of relic decaying particles with decay times in the interval . Decaying particles are typically constrained at early times by or , at intermediate times by , and at large times by the ratio. Constraints are shown for a large number of hadronic branching ratios and decaying particle masses and may be applied to constrain the evolution of the early universe.
4 More- Received 29 May 2006
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.74.103509
©2006 American Physical Society